]]>https://ariversideview.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/traffickers-sell-lies-in-the-guise-of-dreams/
Fri, 16 Jan 2015 22:30:31 +0000Kevin Algarhttps://ariversideview.wordpress.com/2015/01/16/traffickers-sell-lies-in-the-guise-of-dreams/Traffickers sell lies in the guise of dreams. They are clever, creative and can capture the imagination of those who are seeking a better life. Trafficking remains the fastest-growing global crime, and in 2015 hundreds of thousands of people will fall prey to the deception of a trafficker.

Elaina Kujar grew up on a tea estate in the Lakhimpur district, North Eastern Assam dreaming that one day she would become a nurse. Sadly, the poor economic situation of Elaina’s family meant this dream could not become a reality.

At age 14yrs, Elaina was approached by a trafficker on the tea plantation estate. “He said he would change our lives” says Elaina. Elaina’s parents were earning very little money as tea plantation workers. It was difficult for them to afford to keep Elaina at home. Elaina explains “The tea garden was closed when he came and my parents were not working, so my father wanted to send me.”

The reality Elaina experienced when leaving with the trafficker was a stark contrast to the exciting life free from poverty that she was promised. Elaina was trafficked into sexual exploitation. She was trapped, abused, forced to work throughout the night and received no money.1

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Fri, 16 Jan 2015 12:56:00 +0000Jesse Voluntaryist Mathewsonhttps://individualstalkingback.com/2015/01/16/with-the-heart-of-a-wolf-might-over-rights/https://tivenews.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/wednesday-14th-january/
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 20:37:28 +0000cherryechttps://tivenews.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/wednesday-14th-january/Welcome to my first post! Below you’ll find some news stories of interest – I emphasise the positive elements to provoke thought and action on wider issues in a different way, with additional reading links provided where appropriate. To keep it light I’m including recommendations on things to listen to, watch and do in your day.

News

As I dive into the first edition of news for my blog, I want to go back to some of my favourite stories earmarked from the last few months. As I go on, I’ll try to keep things more current and topical.

Knitting Behind Bars: In America, a small group of women set up a weekly knitting class in a local prison. Five years on, the result has been a ‘marked increase in good behaviour’ at the facility and hundreds of hats knitted for inner city kids in Baltimore. See other ways that prisoners have helped communities and turned their own lives around in HuffPost’s 2013 summary here. Read more about restorative justice here.

Modern day slavery: It’s estimated that 32 million people are trapped in some form of slavery today, yet huge voids exist in public knowledge and mainstream media reporting that seriously impede the fight against it. Recently, religious leaders from all over the world united to sign a declaration which purports to end slavery in all its forms by 2020, raising the bar for those involved in the fight and raising the profile of this global issue. Read The Guardian article here and visit antislavery.org to learn more about the meaning and impact of modern day slavery. My friends set up a fantastic campaign whilst at University to raise awareness of human trafficking and offer practical support to survivors. Red Light Campaign is run by a small group of volunteers – get involved and access more information here.

I’ll ride with you: Following the recent Sydney terrorist attack, residents united on social media to show solidarity with Australian Muslims by sharing the hashtag #illridewithyou. Read more on the Guardian here.

Evolving illnesses: Researchers have reported that HIV is evolving to become less deadly and less infectious, which could contribute to its elimination. Read more on BBC here and for World AIDS Day in pictures, click here.

Listen

Sometimes I just want a recommendation of one song, podcast or radio show to keep me entertained right there and then. Here’s my random recommendation of the day: Whoopi Goldberg’s Desert Island Discs from 2009. It’s upbeat, engrossing and features a track from Stevie Wonder a.k.a. my hero.

Watch

If you like cop shows, American sitcoms and/or Andy Samberg, this one’s for you. Brooklyn Nine Nine returns to UK TV on Thursday 15th January – catch up on season one on Netflix now (I did it in a week!)

Activity corner

I’ve been inspired by a campaign my friend was recently involved in to do a bit of dancersize in 2015. Yes, I’ve learned a burlesque routine to Santa Baby and no, I don’t regret it. Watch the #thisgirlcan video here and get moving! Find out about local activities and classes on Twitter, Facebook or on Spogo.

The announcement comes after a four-year campaign by the fan activist group the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), anti-slavery activists, and even Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling herself, to convince the studio to stop buying cocoa from a company called Behr’s Chocolate, which has a poor record on human rights and child labor.

After years of pressure, Warner Bros. announced that by the end of 2015, “and sooner when possible,” all Harry Potter chocolate products sold at Warner Bros. outlets or their licensed partners will be ethically sourced.

The success is just the latest for the HPA, a group that mobilizes fans to follow the lead of their fictional hero and enact change in the world.

Rowling’s Harry Potter fought against Lord Voldemort and the evils he represented, like fascism, tyranny, and slavery. But he also stood up for vulnerable people who needed looking out for. For years, the HPA has helped fans focus that moral lens on the violence and abuses of their own world, big and small. In 2010, they raised more than $120,000 to send relief planes to Haiti after the earthquake. They have also collected more than 200,000 books to stock libraries around the world, and called out extreme economic inequality. For legions of followers inspired by Harry’s integrity, buying cocoa produced in exploitation and slapping a Harry Potter label on it was intolerable.

Raising money and donations is critical work for any organization. But changing corporate policy and ending support for forced labor? That’s another, more difficult assignment.

Henry Jenkins, a media scholar who coined the term “fan activism,” said the win was “without precedent.”

“I have not located any examples of organizations able to sustain the level of activity the HPA has, over such an extended period of time, on multiple fronts, and to achieve such clear and unambiguous successes in terms of the goals they have set for themselves,” he told Lauren Bird, a representative of the HPA.

To accomplish their goal, The HPA partnered with Walk Free, an international organization dedicated to ending modern slavery. The two groups met with Warner Bros. executives, and delivered a petition with more than 400,000 signatures asking the studio to end contracts with cocoa-producing businesses that don’t protect workers’ human rights.

“This goes beyond raising money and donating books,” Bird told me in an email. ”This is over four years of creative organizing, educating, collaborating, and negotiating. For the HPA, this is a validation of fan activism, the idea that fans of stories can work together to effect change in the real world.”

While this single change is not likely to change the lives of many cocoa farmers directly (“Harry Potter chocolate is not a huge market,” Bird admitted), Bird said that small victories can pave the way to larger ones.

“Given the popularity of Harry Potter, we have a real chance to see a domino effect with other companies feeling pressure to follow suit,” Bird told me. “It is our hope that other major corporations look to Warner Bros. and take their lead in establishing better ethical sourcing practices … we may yet see a real improvement in the cocoa industry and the lives of cocoa workers. ”

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Tue, 13 Jan 2015 14:22:50 +0000Javierhttps://javipena.com/2015/01/13/gods-just-anger-against-us-too/ Many religious and non-religious observers have said that one remarkable trait that separates us moderns from ancient peoples is our belief that we are basically good. We’ll readily agree that “no one’s perfect,” but other than that, most of us have a fundamentally good orientation and are of a wholly different moral and psychological make-up from a Hitler, or a serial killer, or a rapist. From a religious and specifically Christian perspective, then, we have no need to be forgiven, much less “saved” from anything, since we haven’t done anything terribly bad. I would argue that this view is dangerously mistaken, however, and the excerpt below from Mike McKinley’s Passion shows this error in stark contrast to what is true. There is a place in this (so far) excellent and short book where McKinleyargues that because God is perfect and holy, his anger at human oppression and injustice is completely justified and righteous; indeed, God’s wrath is “actually part of His perfection – not a suspension of it.” He then argues that if people are made in God’s image, then we would expect this righteous anger to be expressed at times by people. To illustrate this, he tells:

_______________________________________

“A friend of mine recently told me about a time in an east Asian nation where his hosts drove him into the capital city. As they entered the city, they were confronted by a long line of young girls, lined up by the side of the road. These girls had been sold into slavery as prostitutes (often by their parents), and they would spend their lives being used and abused until they were finally cast aside when they were no longer desirable. My friend described his feelings as he saw these girls: an anger, a rage in his heart that made him feel as if his chest was going to rip in two. “…If that goes for humans, it goes for the God who made humans, too… [And here is the key part for us] But where we really run into a problem, where we really object to God’s wrath and justice, is when it comes to us. We may be happy with a God who punishes the rapists and the murderers, but we aren’t happy with a God who punishes us. But where would you draw the line? How much should He tolerate from you? How much of your pride, anger, deceit, manipulation and selfishness do you think God should overlook?… The Bible tells us where God draws the line: He demands perfection” (18-19).

The Harry Potter series was a giant exercise in universe building, and with seven books, J.K. Rowling had a lot of space to incorporate many of the more complicated aspects of society. One notable inclusion is the plight of house-elves, the wizarding world’s manifestation of slavery. This institution was hinted at as early as the second book with the introduction of Dobby into the plot, but was placed in the background until the fourth book, when Hermione witnesses the harsh treatment of Winky at the Quidditch World Cup. She shouts, “You know, house-elves get a very raw deal….It’s slavery, that’s what it is….Why doesn’t anyone do something about it?” (80).

Hermione decides to be that someone and starts an awareness campaign, which would eventually be called S.P.E.W., as soon as she gets back to school. Harry and Hermione confronted the problem in very different ways with actions that produced different results. Where Harry desired to free one elf in The Chamber of Secrets and succeeded, Hermione felt called to topple the entire system by creating an awareness campaign, but failed.

Hermione was a young activist, likely to make many blunders as she learned how to move and persuade people. She had some good first steps by doing extensive research on the creatures that she was trying to free and attempting to make an organization for the cause to cling to. Her actual awareness building and persuasive tactics, however, fell a little flat. This is not altogether the fault of her social awkwardness or the stubbornness of her classmates. Part of it was that she lacked the proper techniques on how to make a private, domestic or economic issue, meant to be resolved between the house-elves and their masters, into an effective public and political issue.

An article by Nicolas M. Dahan and Milton Gittens explains how any anti-slavery advocate needs to frame their issue and move the issue from private to public. There are three framings needed to shape this problem into a public ethical issue. First, the activist must use diagnostic framing, which is pointing out the problem, its causes, and consequences. Then the advocate must come up with a prognostic framing that gives a suggested solution or plan of attack to eliminating the problem. Finally, they must use motivational framing, which gives their cause urgency and a rationale as to why their issue must be addressed quickly (230).

Hermione could point to the problem, but could not properly articulate the consequences, for both the house-elves and the people who benefit from the system. She also could not suggest solutions on how to handle issues that would arise if the house-elves were freed. For example, how would the elves be healed from the psychological damage inflicted by their masters, who made them believe that they are inferior and have no other purpose in life but to serve? And, who would fill the labor hole left by the elves’ emancipation? Finally, she is unsuccessful at convincing others as to why this is a problem that needs to be fixed immediately. All these qualities were missing in the S.P.E.W. campaign, which is why it unfortunately failed.

Her attempts are certainly noble, especially for trying to fight the issue alone. It was also not a complete waste of effort because, according to Brychann Carey, Hermione homed in on one important idea that can make an activist campaign more successful. He states that, unlike Harry, who managed to free one elf because Dobby helped him but did not continue with his abolitionist efforts, Hermione realized that the problem of house-elf slavery is not a personal one, but a public one requiring political engagement to reach public solutions (Carey 105). Hermione’s steps were clumsy, but she ultimately started with a workable model that just needed to be tweaked in order to make it more effective (Carey 107).

While Rowling does not offer suggestions on how to make a successful campaign, she does paint a picture of a world not too unlike our own where people in the non-slave class are, at best, apathetic to an institution so ingrained into our society. In most cases, even if we are disturbed by the fact that slavery still exists and that we even benefit from it, we feel that it is too big of an issue to individually tackle. The question of house elves gets dropped after the fourth book, just as the issue of modern slavery rises and falls in our own social awareness. Hermione was discouraged from her efforts because closer, more personal threats took up her energy, much like the reality that those who do not personally encounter slavery do not actively pursue the end to slavery. With the inclusion of the house elves and the issue of slavery, Rowling might be suggesting that so many social injustices continue to exist because activists are unable to give the issues the sense of urgency needed in order to resolve them.

Dahan, Nicolas M. and Milton Gittens. “Business and the Public Affairs of Slavery: A Discursive Approach of an Ethical Public Issue.” Journal of Business Ethics 92.2 (Mar., 2010): 227-249. JSTOR. Web. 9 Nov. 2014

Do many people ask themselves that question? Or do some people embrace a violent, powerfully dogmatic religion based on fear, intolerance and greed without questioning the morality or sanity of it while others simple-mindedly renounce the same ideology reflexively without understanding what it truly is?

How about the term conservative? What exactly are conservatives attempting to conserve? Is it systemic racism, sexism and religious intolerance?

Is it to conserve the status of Capitalism as the state religion of a Corporatocracy bent on gracing corporations with “personhood” while eliminating human rights for human beings?

Is it to conserve slavery in a modern, more covert style so the victims don’t understand that their hearts and minds have been placed in deep-seated prisons and rendered virtually useless?

Let’s look at this in a way more easily understood by the compliant adherents to this creed of slow, tragic suicide.

In 1776, it was Conservatives that supported the claim of the King of England that the U.S. colonists should pay taxes to a monarch across the Atlantic Ocean without representation in his government.

In 1861, it was Conservatives that started a war in support of the right of states to continue a sadistic system in which a large portion of the citizenry were denied basic human rights strictly due to the color of their skin.

It was Conservatives who reacted violently to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and formed the Ku Klux Klan as a way of terrorizing Blacks throughout the South to “keep them in their place.” They started race riots and committed mass murders of innocent people simply to try and keep alive a sociopathic system they’d used to feed off fellow citizens like psychotic vampires.

In 1868, it was Conservatives who again initiated an eruption of murders of innocent people after the passing of the Fourteenth Amendment which addressed citizenship and “equal protection” of the law for former slaves.

In 1954, it was Conservatives who drafted the Southern Manifesto and spent (and are still spending?) decades fighting tooth and nail to prevent civil rights legislation.

Today, it is Conservatives who are enthusiastically supporting a political party at the forefront of initiating war; state-sponsored terrorism; destruction of the working class through economic terrorism and a high-powered agenda of racism, sexism, religious intolerance and homophobia aimed at consolidating control over the entire population (not to mention the fact that they’ve cleverly infiltrated the “other” party to an extent that we have virtually one political party in the U.S. – the demipublicans).

It is Conservatives who spread mind-numbing propaganda that purports to refute solid science on subjects such as human caused climate change, the depletion of the ozone layer, the environmental and health impacts of pesticides and herbicides and the destruction of natural habitats due to overpopulation and over consumption of resources.

These “people” use their behavior modification system (otherwise known as mainstream media) to attack a widespread consensus of irrefutable facts on these and other subjects. In recent years they’ve had difficulty in keeping up with this nonsensical barrage of brain bile and have changed their strategy to attacking individual scientists in an effort to intimidate them into not publishing their data. This strategy is much like a pride of lions circling a weak or injured animal on the plains of Africa. Individuals usually find it an arduous task to ward off these bullying tactics. This strategy is detrimental to humanity yet the fear industry never seems to be at a loss to find talking heads posing as scientists to spew this type of idiocy.

It is Conservatives who maniacally protect the Second Amendment from imaginary enemies yet allow destruction of the most precious and important part of the U.S. Constitution: the First Amendment. Do they actually believe that owning firearms is a more important right than free speech? (At best, the right to bear arms can be seen as a way of helping protect the right of free speech, but it can never be as important. And, the gun nuts of this country, in their unbalanced zeal for destructive toys, have flooded our streets – and playgrounds – with weapons some of which are far too lethal to be considered “necessary” anywhere but a battlefield). But, I digress…

Let’s take a look at the word conservation. The definition is the act of preserving, of preventing decay or loss.

Conservatives in the U.S. are feeding at a trough of cancerous ideas based on fear and hate that are destroying the environment, destroying what little democracy is left in this dysfunctional society and causing a decay of civilization through the loss of compassion, integrity, justice, creativity and equality. Their war on human rights is an abomination. They place corporate tools in OUR government to disembowel it and then point at the problems they’ve caused and complain government doesn’t work. If Conservatives hate government so much, why do so many of them fight so tenaciously to be a part of it?

And these are the people who spend so much time trumpeting the terms values, family, decency and patriotism over the airwaves (they’ve stolen) while destroying the reputations of honest, hard working people (and their famlies) who actually care about something other than their bank accounts.

One way of defining the new version of Conservativism might be to say it is a system in which everything is for sale – including people, morality, integrity and truth.

So, apparently, we need to remind the disciples of this fatal and destructive religion that truth IS NOT a commodity. And, you can sell your integrity but can you ever buy it back?

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Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:58:42 +0000Daniel J. Maxhttps://maxdanielj.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/church-heres-why-people-are-leaving-you-part-3/https://maxdanielj.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/church-heres-why-people-are-leaving-you-part-2/
Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:40:24 +0000Daniel J. Maxhttps://maxdanielj.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/church-heres-why-people-are-leaving-you-part-2/https://maxdanielj.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/church-heres-why-people-are-leaving-you-part-1/
Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:40:07 +0000Daniel J. Maxhttps://maxdanielj.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/church-heres-why-people-are-leaving-you-part-1/https://ariversideview.wordpress.com/2015/01/09/married-pregnant-and-13/
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 13:44:29 +0000Kevin Algarhttps://ariversideview.wordpress.com/2015/01/09/married-pregnant-and-13/Maha is 13. Maha and her family fled the conflict in Syria and now live in a refugee camp in Jordan. Maha used to go to school and dreamt of becoming a doctor. Forced to marry an older man by her parents she is now pregnant with her first child.1

She is not alone. Forced child marriage amongst the Syrian refugee population in Jordan is rising sharply2 as more and more families see child marriage as a way to lessen their financial burden and protect girls from sexual violence in the refugee camps.3

The good news is that frontline agencies are working hard to stem the tide of child marriages with education and protection programmes in Jordan, but as it stands these efforts are critically under-funded.4

This is where we can help — but we don’t have long to act. Right now the United Nations is preparing to hold consultations on the humanitarian aid situation in Syria. A huge number of messages to some of the world’s richest nations now could make ending child marriage an international priority.

Jordan has outlawed child marriage5 but the majority of marriages in the Syrian refugee community are unregistered, which means stopping the ceremonies before they happen is next to impossible.

That’s why these comprehensive education and prevention efforts to address the issue directly are so important. We know these programmes are raising awareness of the dangers of early marriage with thousands of men, women and children.6

Most of the world is doing the right thing by effectively resourcing these activities. It is some of the world’s richest nations like Australia, the US, the UK and New Zealand that are not contributing their fair share of aid.7

Help prevent forced child marriage by asking the world’s richest nations to fund education and protection programs in Jordan here.

There is only a small window of opportunity and we will need a huge number of messages to convince countries to prioritise ending child marriage. Once you have taken action, please ask your friends and family to do the same.

*Please note names of children have been changed to protect identity in the source documents.

Living in the United States, it is sometimes difficult to recognize that slavery exists outside of the history of the Americas. The trans-Atlantic chattel slave trade is what is taught about in school, what is seen in films and television, and what is recognized as a collective history within American culture. However, if one can analyze history outside of the Americas, there is a much older chattel slave trade in the world’s history that ran long after the trans-Atlantic slave trade ended. It is important for Americans to acknowledge that slavery is a current international problem that did not end after the U.S. Civil War so that victims in other parts of the world can get the exposure and help they need.

During the time of the Roman Empire, the Romans established a slave trade stretching south from North Africa all the way down to the Sahara and Sub-Saharan Africa. Arabs invaded the North African Roman territory in the 7th and 8th centuries during the Arab Conquests and took over this slave trade. For nearly a 1000 years, Arabs used that slave trade system to take Africans from the Sahara and Sub-Saharan regions and use them for various forms of labor in North Africa. Arabs have notoriously raided African villages and stolen people for domestic service, agricultural work, mineral extraction, military service, industry and commerce, and administration (Alexander 44-9). A country that has been particularly affected by this slave trade is Sudan. Its current status as a country has been highly influenced by the long history of exploitation of its black African people. Not only has this history of raiding villages and enslaving inhabitants caused a great amount of tension between Arabs and black Africans in Sudan, but it also has taken the lives of countless innocent victims.

In Sudan in the 1980s, there was a rebellion from the African south when the mostly Arab government tried to impose Sharia laws upon the entire country. This caused a civil war, and Arab raids on African villages were unfortunately common. Many young women were abducted, such as Abuk Bak from a small Dinka village (Bak 39-40). An Arab family enslaved her for 10 years until she ran away because of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse. She lost her family, her identity, and her freedom. She was a runaway slave in the year 1997, which is difficult to conceptualize if you are only used to thinking of slavery as a past event that has been resolved (Bak 41-55). She became a refugee after escaping her master. This is a story shared by many other Sudanese people who were abducted and sold into this chattel slave trade.

Currently, South Sudan has gained independence and is attempting to piece together a peaceful government. However, slavery lingers over its culture and people, as its effects are still visible. Many Arabs and black African Sudanese people do not openly acknowledge the existence of the chattel slave trade, so it is a sort of repressed collective history. This attitude towards the slave trade kept it largely unnoticed by the international world until the 1990s.

It is obvious from the past and current history of Sudan that slavery is impacting the lives of many people, such as Abuk Bak. As an American, if issues of modern slavery concern you, it is important to educate yourself so you can understand where it is still a problem. Slavery didn’t disappear after the US Civil War, even in the United States. For example, on the anti-slavery organization End Slavery Now’s website, they post daily headlines about international current events involving slavery. There are about 30 million people enslaved in the world today, and learning more about this problem can spur us to action that could be beneficial for all of them.

Well following on from the historic signing of the Declaration of Religious Leaders against Slavery at the Vatican City, on 2 December 2014 *, where for the first time in history, the leaders of the world’s major religions gathered together with the aim of eliminating modern slavery, it appears that the issue of Human Trafficking and Human Slavery are uppermost in world leaders minds and New Year public speeches.

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cnns_ct5c7c

Pope Francis used the New Year Mass to condemn both Slavery and Human Trafficking, with the theme of service to mark Roman Catholic church’s World Day of Peace, being, ‘No Longer Slaves, but Brothers and Sisters’. Barack Obama, the US President, proclaimed January 2015 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, culminating in the annual celebration of National Freedom Day on February 1, and France’s President Francoise Hollande pledged: “progress of all the fields and for everyone“, and said that he is looking towards a “declaration on the rights of humanity to preserve the planet.”

For the first time in history, leaders of the world’s largest faiths have come together. Their goal is to end slavery. Committed to the dignity and freedom that is the birth right of all humankind, Catholic, Anglican, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and Orthodox leaders signed a Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders Against Modern Slavery on World Day for the Abolition of Slavery. Why not join them?

Pope Francis married 20 couples from different social backgrounds during a ceremony at St Peter’s basilica in Vatican City, on September 14, 2014 (AFP)

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis urged people of all religions and cultures on Thursday to unite to fight modern slavery and human trafficking, saying in his first Mass of 2015 that everyone had a God-given right to be free.

The service at St. Peter’s Basilica marks the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Peace. This year’s theme is “No Longer Slaves, but Brothers and Sisters.”

“All of us are called (by God) to be free, all are called to be sons and daughters, and each, according to his or her own responsibilities, is called to combat modern forms of enslavement. From every people, culture and religion, let us join our forces,” he said.

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Thu, 01 Jan 2015 16:12:31 +0000Olga Brajnovićhttps://blognovic.com/2015/01/01/pope-francis-first-message-of-the-year-against-modern-slavery/Pope Francis focused his message for the World day of Peace in the harsh reality of the modern slavery and what the Christians, the International Community, the States, the organizations and the Businesses should do to fight this problem that affects to millions of people worldwide. In his message he draws a diagnostic of the situation and writes against the “globalisation of the indifference” among those who live comfortably while so many people are suffering the unjust deprivation of their liberty and are living in conditions akin to slavery.
Below you can find the highlights of his message:

The many faces of slavery yesterday and today

From time immemorial, different societies have known the phenomenon of man’s subjugation by man. There have been periods of human history in which the institution of slavery was generally accepted and regulated by law. This legislation dictated who was born free and who was born into slavery, as well as the conditions whereby a freeborn person could lose his or her freedom or regain it. In other words, the law itself admitted that some people were able or required to be considered the property of other people, at their free disposition. A slave could be bought and sold, given away or acquired, as if he or she were a commercial product.

Today, as the result of a growth in our awareness, slavery, seen as a crime against humanity, has been formally abolished throughout the world. The right of each person not to be kept in a state of slavery or servitude has been recognized in international law as inviolable.

Yet, even though the international community has adopted numerous agreements aimed at ending slavery in all its forms, and has launched various strategies to combat this phenomenon, millions of people today – children, women and men of all ages – are deprived of freedom and are forced to live in conditions akin to slavery.

I think of the many men and women labourers, including minors, subjugated in different sectors, whether formally or informally, in domestic or agricultural workplaces, or in the manufacturing or mining industry; whether in countries where labour regulations fail to comply with international norms and minimum standards, or, equally illegally, in countries which lack legal protection for workers’ rights.

I think also of the living conditions of many migrants who, in their dramatic odyssey, experience hunger, are deprived of freedom, robbed of their possessions, or undergo physical and sexual abuse. In a particular way, I think of those among them who, upon arriving at their destination after a gruelling journey marked by fear and insecurity, are detained in at times inhumane conditions. I think of those among them, who for different social, political and economic reasons, are forced to live clandestinely. My thoughts also turn to those who, in order to remain within the law, agree to disgraceful living and working conditions, especially in those cases where the laws of a nation create or permit a structural dependency of migrant workers on their employers, as, for example, when the legality of their residency is made dependent on their labour contract. Yes, I am thinking of “slave labour”.

I think also of persons forced into prostitution, many of whom are minors, as well as male and female sex slaves. I think of women forced into marriage, those sold for arranged marriages and those bequeathed to relatives of their deceased husbands, without any right to give or withhold their consent.

Nor can I fail to think of all those persons, minors and adults alike, who are made objects of trafficking for the sale of organs, forrecruitment as soldiers, for begging, for illegal activities such as the production and sale of narcotics, or for disguised forms of cross-border adoption.

Finally, I think of all those kidnapped and held captive by terrorist groups, subjected to their purposes as combatants, or, above all in the case of young girls and women, to be used as sex slaves. Many of these disappear, while others are sold several times over, tortured, mutilated or killed.

Some deeper causes of slavery

Today, as in the past, slavery is rooted in a notion of the human person which allows him or her to be treated as an object. Whenever sin corrupts the human heart and distances us from our Creator and our neighbours, the latter are no longer regarded as beings of equal dignity, as brothers or sisters sharing a common humanity, but rather as objects. Whether by coercion or deception, or by physical or psychological duress, human persons created in the image and likeness of God are deprived of their freedom, sold and reduced to being the property of others. They are treated as means to an end.

Alongside this deeper cause – the rejection of another person’s humanity – there are other causes which help to explain contemporary forms of slavery. Among these, I think in the first place of poverty, underdevelopment and exclusion, especially when combined with a lack of access to education or scarce, even non-existent, employment opportunities. Not infrequently, the victims of human trafficking and slavery are people who look for a way out of a situation of extreme poverty; taken in by false promises of employment, they often end up in the hands of criminal networks which organize human trafficking. These networks are skilled in using modern means of communication as a way of luring young men and women in various parts of the world.

Another cause of slavery is corruption on the part of people willing to do anything for financial gain. Slave labour and human trafficking often require the complicity of intermediaries, be they law enforcement personnel, state officials, or civil and military institutions. “This occurs when money, and not the human person, is at the centre of an economic system. Yes, the person, made in the image of God and charged with dominion over all creation, must be at the centre of every social or economic system. When the person is replaced by mammon, a subversion of values occurs”.

Further causes of slavery include armedconflicts, violence, criminal activity and terrorism. Many people are kidnapped in order to be sold, enlisted as combatants, or sexually exploited, while others are forced to emigrate, leaving everything behind: their country, home, property, and even members of their family. They are driven to seek an alternative to these terrible conditions even at the risk of their personal dignity and their very lives; they risk being drawn into that vicious circle which makes them prey to misery, corruption and their baneful consequences.

A shared commitment to ending slavery

Often, when considering the reality of human trafficking, illegal trafficking of migrants and other acknowledged or unacknowledged forms of slavery, one has the impression that they occur within a context of general indifference.

Sadly, this is largely true. Yet I would like to mention the enormous and often silent efforts which have been made for many years by religious congregations, especially women’s congregations, to provide support to victims. These institutes work in very difficult situations, dominated at times by violence, as they work to break the invisible chains binding victims to traffickers and exploiters. Those chains are made up of a series of links, each composed of clever psychological ploys which make the victims dependent on their exploiters. This is accomplished by blackmail and threats made against them and their loved ones, but also by concrete acts such as the confiscation of their identity documents and physical violence. The activity of religious congregations is carried out in three main areas: in offering assistance to victims, in working for their psychological and educational rehabilitation, and in efforts to reintegrate them into the society where they live or from which they have come.

This immense task, which calls for courage, patience and perseverance, deserves the appreciation of the whole Church and society. Yet, of itself, it is not sufficient to end the scourge of the exploitation of human persons. There is also need for a threefold commitment on the institutional level: to prevention, to victim protection and to the legal prosecution of perpetrators. Moreover, since criminal organizations employ global networks to achieve their goals, efforts to eliminate this phenomenon also demand a common and, indeed, a global effort on the part of various sectors of society.

States must ensure that their own legislation truly respects the dignity of the human person in the areas of migration, employment, adoption, the movement of businesses offshore and the sale of items produced by slave labour. There is a need for just laws which are centred on the human person, uphold fundamental rights and restore those rights when they have been violated. Such laws should also provide for the rehabilitation of victims, ensure their personal safety, and include effective means of enforcement which leave no room for corruption or impunity. The role of women in society must also be recognized, not least through initiatives in the sectors of culture and social communications.

Intergovernmental organizations, in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity, are called to coordinate initiatives for combating the transnational networks of organized crime which oversee the trafficking of persons and the illegal trafficking of migrants. Cooperation is clearly needed at a number of levels, involving national and international institutions, agencies of civil society and the world of finance.

Businesses have a duty to ensure dignified working conditions and adequate salaries for their employees, but they must also be vigilant that forms of subjugation or human trafficking do not find their way into the distribution chain. Together with the social responsibility of businesses, there is also the social responsibility of consumers. Every person ought to have the awareness that “purchasing is always a moral – and not simply an economic – act”.

Organizations in civil society, for their part, have the task of awakening consciences and promoting whatever steps are necessary for combating and uprooting the culture of enslavement.

In recent years, the Holy See, attentive to the pain of the victims of trafficking and the voice of the religious congregations which assist them on their path to freedom, has increased its appeals to the international community for cooperation and collaboration between different agencies in putting an end to this scourge. Meetings have also been organized to draw attention to the phenomenon of human trafficking and to facilitate cooperation between various agencies, including experts from the universities and international organizations, police forces from migrants’ countries of origin, transit, or destination, and representatives of ecclesial groups which work with victims. It is my hope that these efforts will continue to expand in years to come.

Globalizing fraternity, not slavery or indifference

In her “proclamation of the truth of Christ’s love in society”, the Church constantly engages in charitable activities inspired by the truth of the human person. She is charged with showing to all the path to conversion, which enables us to change the way we see our neighbours, to recognize in every other person a brother or sister in our human family, and to acknowledge his or her intrinsic dignity in truth and freedom. This can be clearly seen from the story of Josephine Bakhita, the saint originally from the Darfur region in Sudan who was kidnapped by slave-traffickers and sold to brutal masters when she was nine years old. Subsequently – as a result of painful experiences – she became a “free daughter of God” thanks to her faith, lived in religious consecration and in service to others, especially the most lowly and helpless. This saint, who lived at the turn of the twentieth century, is even today an exemplary witness of hope for the many victims of slavery; she can support the efforts of all those committed to fighting against this “open wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ”.

In the light of all this, I invite everyone, in accordance with his or her specific role and responsibilities, to practice acts of fraternity towards those kept in a state of enslavement. Let us ask ourselves, as individuals and as communities, whether we feel challenged when, in our daily lives, we meet or deal with persons who could be victims of human trafficking, or when we are tempted to select items which may well have been produced by exploiting others. Some of us, out of indifference, or financial reasons, or because we are caught up in our daily concerns, close our eyes to this. Others, however, decide to do something about it, to join civic associations or to practice small, everyday gestures – which have so much merit! – such as offering a kind word, a greeting or a smile. These cost us nothing but they can offer hope, open doors, and change the life of another person who lives clandestinely; they can also change our own lives with respect to this reality.

We ought to recognize that we are facing a global phenomenon which exceeds the competence of any one community or country. In order to eliminate it, we need a mobilization comparable in size to that of the phenomenon itself. For this reason I urgently appeal to all men and women of good will, and all those near or far, including the highest levels of civil institutions, who witness the scourge of contemporary slavery, not to become accomplices to this evil, not to turn away from the sufferings of our brothers and sisters, our fellow human beings, who are deprived of their freedom and dignity. Instead, may we have the courage to touch the suffering flesh of Christ, revealed in the faces of those countless persons whom he calls “the least of these my brethren” (Mt25:40, 45).

We know that God will ask each of us: What did you do for your brother? (cf. Gen 4:9-10). The globalization of indifference, which today burdens the lives of so many of our brothers and sisters, requires all of us to forge a new worldwide solidarity and fraternity capable of giving them new hope and helping them to advance with courage amid the problems of our time and the new horizons which they disclose and which God places in our hands.